Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE FLEET, by CHESTER FIRKINS


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE FLEET, by                    
First Line: Gaunt rocks of death that darkly lay
Last Line: Went forth for peace, or war.
Subject(s): Battleships; Heroism; New York City; War; Heroes; Heroines; Manhattan; New York, New York; The Big Apple


Gaunt rocks of death that darkly lay,
Unstirred by tide or river's sway,
Against the glory of the day
The ships of war were still.
Kindred in color to the wave,
Kindred in menace to the grave,
They floated, terrible and brave,
Beneath the peopled hill.

Immovable as forted isles—
Stern guns abristle from their piles—
The anchored squadron marked the miles
From bay to city's rim.
We gazed upon the steely chain—
The shackles of the mighty main—
Built, by our will, for human pain,
And felt the grandeur grim.

But sudden fell the veil of night,
And sudden to the wondering sight,
From far-thronged wave, and wall and height,
We saw the splendor glow.
Phantasmal as a magic dream,
The bosom of the hidden stream
Burst, beautiful, into the gleam
Of lights, long filed and low.

The floating citadels of death.
As by some mystic shibboleth,
Were fashioned, in the space of breath,
Into a fairy scene.
The things that men had made to kill
Stood glorified and sweet and still,
While music reached the shoreward hill
From out the dream-demesne.

But yet again the dawn came, cold.
The deep guns, by their thunder, told
Their power, where the echoes rolled
Against the rocky shore.
And out upon the ocean grey,
Trim, terrible, in close array,
The dreamful, deathful ships away
Went forth for Peace, or War.





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